The Dark Light Stories

Summary:“You created me as your toy and now you’re forcing me to sleep with a ghost. Can you still tell yourself that you’re not selfish?”*** Warning: This story is Carlisle/Edward slash. There will be sexual scenes between these two characters. If that bothers you, as they should say in marriage: run now or forever hold your peace. These stories will follow Carlisle and Edward through ten life-changing events, from Edward's transformation to meeting Bella. They will explore the love that evolved between the two men and the betrayal that 87 years together can bring.

Notes:
Each section will be set to a song from HIM's "Dark Light" CD, which I recommend you listen to: A) because it rocks and B) because it follows the story. The chapters will be as follows: 1. Killing Loneliness: Edward’s Beginning 2. In The Nightside of Eden: Lovers 3. Rip Out The Wings Of A Butterfly: Carlisle’s Doubts 4. Dark Light: Esme’s Turning 5. Vampire Heart: Edward’s Rebellion 6. The Face of God: Carlisle’s Regrets 7. Under The Rose: Edward’s Return 8. Drunk On Shadows: Rosalie’s Turning 9. Play Dead: Edward’s Regression 10. Behind The Crimson Door: The Last Kiss

6. The Face of God: Carlisle's Doubts

Carlisle learned to hate New York after Edward disappeared. The city’s noise no longer comforted him whenever he left the house for the hospital; the roar of automobiles, still so odd and disturbing as they startled the horses and sent them whinnying made Carlisle flinch. Panhandlers pitiful mumbles made his skin crawl as he tossed a few coins at them and every beautiful boy who vanished around a cement wall, who glanced back with unseeing eyes before turning a corner, sent his heart reeling with hope.

The townhouse was no better, Esme’s endless compassion was such a drastic change to the jealous, passionate lover he’d had for so long before that he mindlessly searched for reasons to fight with her as a way of releasing the pent up aggression he usually kept for Edward’s bed.

Edward’s bed.

That empty room that neither of them had touched.

Carlisle had recently put the house on the market and interest was steadily rising. He would have to empty Edward’s room sometime. He would have to pry off the nails that he had put in the frame, those nails he put in to stop the temptation of looking in that room every day, and gather all the precious possessions. What was in that room was all that he had left of his first born, his lover.

He would have to sell the piano that had scarred him the moment it had entered the home, rife with someone else’s love. He imagined Dominic again but his anger had deformed the young man’s face, he looked pudgy and old in Carlisle’s mind. He knew that in reality, Dominic was sleek and pale with striking eyes and high cheekbones. He tortured himself with the thought of Edward turning Dominic. Of making him ten times the beauty with the venom and then disappearing forever, a new partner beside him that would worship him.

A new partner that would never scold him or yell or refuse to touch him.

A new partner that wouldn’t come home with a lover as soon as he turned his back.

Carlisle sighed to think it all over. He had lost Edward as surely as he had found him.

The hospital was the only place where the pain dissipated. Surrounded by so much human suffering, his own took a backseat.

A middle-aged man with a broken femur came in. He had been run over by a cart two streets over, the bone was protruding from the skin with most of the surrounding flesh badly mangled. Carlisle’s thoughts became suddenly centered, dispassionate. He slid on a pair sterilized rubber gloves and went to work.

*** One Month Later ***

The sun was just beginning to rise when Carlisle headed home. It was late summer and the leaves were beginning to become dull and dusty. Esme met him at the door with a gentle smile and a kiss.

He gave a hopeful glance up the stairs but Esme shook her head.

“He’s not here, Carlisle,” she murmured.

Patient Esme who knew more than she would ever let on never became angry about Carlisle’s devotion to the ghost in their lives.

“The house sold,” she said.

“Did it?” Carlisle said absently, picking up some letters in the front hall and slicing them open with his thumbnail. “Well then, we’ll have to pack.”

He walked into the kitchen and rummaged in a drawer until he found a small hammer.

“Carlisle?” Esme questioned, her voice rising just slightly with something like worry.

He didn’t answer. He climbed the stairs and stopped in front of Edward’s door, sealed shut like a tomb. He didn’t actually need to use the hammer to remove the nails but it gave him a sense of satisfaction to have a tool in his hands. He wedged the hammer’s claw behind the first nail he found and wrenched. The nail came out with such ease that he stumbled backwards. He looked down at the bent nail clinging to the hammer’s claw and dropped the tool. He began pulling at the nails with his fingers, yanking each one out with more and more speed.

Esme stood behind him, a tiny frown creasing her perfect features as she watched her lover throw himself into this task. His hair had become disheveled and his jacket hung askew on the banister. There was dirt on his crisp, white shirt.

He dropped the last nail to the ground and pushed the door.

For almost two months no one had touched this room. He waited to see the rumpled bed, still unmade and covered in Edward’s journals and books. He could envision the phonograph in the corner and the closet door slightly open with Edward’s perfectly tailored clothes still hanging there, his scent still clinging to them.

The door creaked open and Carlisle gasped.

The room was empty.

The bed was made and the journals and books were gone.

The phonograph was closed and several of the records were missing. The closet door was shut but Carlisle could imagine the missing clothes; the favorite shirts and that pair of Italian leather shoes he bought Edward two years ago.

“He came back,” he whispered, sinking to the floor. “How could I not have known? The nails…the nails are still there.”

“He came in through the window,” Esme murmured. Her eyes were downcast.

“What?” Carlisle snapped, jumping up. He towered over suddenly. “You knew this? You knew he came back and—“

“He didn’t want to see us, Carlisle,” she interrupted gently. “I never saw him, I only sensed him and he didn’t want me to come any closer.”

Esme shivered at the memory of that burning anger slithering down the stairs and closing around her like a fist.

“Where was I?” Carlisle asked.

“Work.”

He let the pain overtake him and slithered to the floor sobbing, his shoulders shaking from the force of it. Esme did not touch him but stood beside him quietly as the smell of Carlisle’s former lover drifted around them, escaping the confines of the room.

When Carlisle finished crying, he stood and took Esme’s hand and they walked into the bedroom together. Carefully, silently, they packed what was left of the clothes and the books. It felt like they had entered a shrine.

Not one journal was left, even though Carlisle looked desperately.

“I’ll have the rest sold,” Esme offered and Carlisle nodded.

“Do you want to leave New York now?” Esme asked.

Carlisle shook his head suddenly. “No, I want him to be able to find us. I want to leave the city, but not the state.”

Esme nodded and closed the final box, trapping Edward’s scent inside.

***

They found a spacious home just outside the city and viewed it on a cloudy day in September. The sky was rumbling when they pulled up in Carlisle’s new Fleetwood Cadillac but the house shimmered. It seemed to be entirely made of glass with no neighbors for 15 miles.

“Oh,” Esme whispered. “It’s beautiful.”

The realtor met them at the door and swung it open with a flourish. He was a pudgy man with a flair for selling but Carlisle barely heard him, he had already decided to buy the home.

“It’s fully modernized,” the realtor said. “Electricity, running water, the whole nine yards. It will be like you’re still in the city but with privacy galore.”

“Lovely,” Carlisle murmured. He watched as the realtor attempted to keep his eyes off Esme’s neat waist, cinched tight in a slim, navy dress.

“There’s four bedrooms, so plenty of room for kids,” at this the realtor winked and Carlisle had to hold back a laugh, “and two indoor washrooms with a full bathtubs in both. It also has a beautiful garden and—“

“We’ll take it,” Carlisle interrupted.

“I’m sorry?”

“The house. We’ll buy it.”

The realtor seemed taken aback. The price was exorbitant, especially during the hard, economic times, but that didn’t affect Carlisle. His money was stockpiled from hundreds of years of living the solitary life of a hermit. The house was extravagant; a glass jewel perched on a hill in the middle of a thick, boreal forest.

Carlisle signed the check right there in the empty living area. He knew, just as certainly as he hoped that Esme didn’t, that he was buying this house for Edward. This home was a gift to Edward’s memory, a new shrine that he was forcing Esme to live in. He was convinced that somehow, across the distance, across wherever it was Edward had gone, he would sense what Carlisle was doing and how desperately the older vampire longed for his return and would come home.

Esme took his hand and they walked around the property together as the rain threatened to fall. The house was surrounded by forest on all sides except for the East, where a large, sloping lawn ran down to a painstakingly cared for English garden where several plump flowers were blooming on squat trees.

“I’ll be able to garden again,” Esme said, smiling up at Carlisle.

He could see the strain in her smile. Ever since he had gotten mad at her for not revealing that Edward had come home she had been hesitant around him, her touches uncertain and light.

“Yes you will. That will be lovely, won’t it?” he heard himself sounding pompous and sighed. “Do you like this home?”

Esme looked at him with an honest, open smile. “I love this home.”

“Good,” Carlisle said.

And I hope he does too, he thought as a thunderous crack split the skies and the rain came tumbling down.

***

I'm drained but aching for moreAnd the devil inside is readingThe words of the saddest poemTo be engraved on the stone of my grave

I'd kill to share your pain(And carry the shame)And sell my soul for you just to say

I dream what you're dreamingAnd feel what you're feelingLove's our shadow on the wallWith the face of god

Nothing will be enoughFor the ones Who keep on stumblingIn the garden of withering trustWithout the courage to leave

Oh I'd take my life for your kiss(Grant me my wish)And lose it all to take you across the abyss

I dream what you're dreamingAnd feel what you're feelingLove's our shadow on the wall With the face of god

You dream what I'm DreamingAnd See what I'm seeingLove's our shadow on the wallWith the Face of God

Labrynth in a shape of a heartLove's secret architectureI find myself to be lost in theArms of your feet

I'd kill to share you pain(And carry the shame)And sell my soul for you just to sayLove's name in veinAgain and again

I dream what you're dreamingAnd feel what you're feelingLove's our shadow on the wall With the face of god

You dream what I'm DreamingAnd See what I'm seeingLove's our shadow on the wallWith the face of godLove's our shadow on the wallWith the face of(Face of)The face of(Face of)God